


technically more than six feet under

by Stabbsworth



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Wickerbottom is mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stabbsworth/pseuds/Stabbsworth
Summary: It's been a while since he's been to the caves for the majority of the summer. And while he's no fan of the constant, all-consuming darkness around him, he'd rather not be overheating to the point of dying again.Near the end of Spring, an alternative version of Wilson finds himself descending the stairs that lead into the caves.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	technically more than six feet under

**Author's Note:**

> legally filed under the 'spirit of the constant at night' au.

Cival cautiously walks down the stairs, eyes adjusting to the lesser amount of light. While he can't exactly see in the dark, he does find the light on the surface world to be far too bright on days where it's not overcast with rain on the way. Too bright to not be constantly squinting, at least.

He somewhat prefers sunsets and night because of this matter, even with the paltry amount of night vision granted to him and the visual snow.

The stairs are somewhat steep, and he's never particularly liked steep stairs, but he'll definitely take that over having to pull himself up with a flimsy rope. Probably too many risks to the survivors, he'd wager.

And the servants. He's not entirely sure if the new Queen (who, mind you, looks an awful lot like his old boss) has hired any more assistants other than a Willow, but should a replacement arrive, he's going to have to deal with that.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs, jumping from the last one and turning on his heel to place his bag down.

In his current state, one would draw a comparison to a drowned rat. The scientist shivers as water drips down and slides down his neck from his hair. It's going to get all poofy later, and he's going to complain about it because it's ruining his mood, whether it be in thoughts and internal monologues, his currently-waterlogged journal or actually grumbling to someone about it.

Everything gets wet in Spring. Absolutely everything.

Only raincoats and rain hats made from tentacle genitalia and god-knows-what from a moleworm will save you.

Or an umbrella and a top hat.

The scientist groans quietly, burying his face in his hands, before trying to wring out his hair.

It always gets poofy when it dries and it becomes a right pain in the arse to brush it back to normal but an attempt to at least look marginally presentable and stop the water in his hair from running down his neck is made.

He hasn't got anything decent to try and tie the majority of it back with, the only hairband he had broke ages ago or he let Wendy borrow it or something.

Crap memory strikes again.

Giving a slight huff, Cival opens up his map and starts towards the summer base that he set up a while back, then he realizes something. He turns around, hearing his hips click, and grabs his backpack and lantern, switches the lantern on and pats himself down to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything.

Then he begins to head towards the summer base.

Frequent diversions are made to secure enough tinder and lightbulbs for the campfire and lanterns respectively.

He'll make sure to shove the lightbulbs in one of the two fridges that are offered at the summer camp, as well as stick any sticks and grass and firewood in a chest.

The backpack he wears on his back is filled with food, or, well, as much food as he can get into it with storing his firewood and tinder in there as well, and he's definitely going to end up shoving the majority of it in the fridge for preservation and later use.

Eventually it'll end up filled with shinies and rocks, and he'll store those up in either his stash or at the camp (provided that it hasn't burned down), and then he'll go on a quick run to get the food from the caves and bring it back upstairs to the surface base.

A few of them might be heading to the oasis this year, supposedly, but it'll practically be impossible to contact them without nearly succumbing to heatstroke, he reckons.

He refuels his lantern with fresher lightbulbs and carries on.

It would be nice if they could get some miner hats, frankly, as those are at least handsfree, allowing tools to be used without having to drop a lantern down or place a campfire and light it.

But miner hats require fireflies and a bug net to catch the damn things in.

Fireflies are a limited resource. So limited, in fact, that a few of them spawn in the oasis every year. At least vaguely renewable.

Much like the gems. He knows those have been changed, and he's pretty sure he's gotten one of the rarer ones from untangling a tumbleweed. Supposedly the Dragonfly drops the rarer gems as well, but he's never bothered to check, and supposedly things in the ruins can drop the green and orange and yellow shinies and he very much wants more shinies-

He stops walking for a moment, realizing that he's managed to get to the base. Good, good. Time to stuff food into the iceboxes.

Cival silently kneels down in front of the icebox, takes his backpack off, and opens the flap. Grabbing a few pieces of jerky in one hand and opening the door of the icebox with the other, he gingerly places them on a shelf within the cold confines of the icebox. They still have a fair amount of meat that hasn't been dried, but they'll get to it down here for the time being.

It still doesn't feel good on his hands to be handling raw monster meat, then to be unable to wash them so that he could handle the clean meat. No monstrous influences.

Ugh, cross-contamination.

Wickerbottom would be having an aneurysm if she witnessed this.

He gives a slight grumble as he takes a hunk of monster meat and shoves it in the icebox next to the… dried monster meat.

Other than that, packing the food into the icebox has been a breeze. There might still be some meat drying back at the camp, but does he really have to care about that when someone else can just as easily grab it in their preparations for summer?

The scientist takes a few berries out of the icebox, his reasoning being that he's hungry and doesn't feel like making a full meal right now. More towards peckish, then, but he doesn't care much for semantics. That's more towards Wickerbottom's thing, she's a librarian, after all.

Besides, nobody's going to miss a few berries or blame him for feeding himself, surely.

It would be much more efficient to take a piece of jerky and make meatballs in the crockpot, but he doesn't feel like it. He's allowed to be lazy, it's nearly summer, for science's sake.

He shuts the door to the icebox, takes a seat on a log, and begins to try and start a fire in the firepit. It takes him a few moments to accomplish this. At the very least, he can expect to dry off a bit quicker.

Cival roasts the berries in silence. Mushy, but a fair bit more filling, if only because his body doesn't have to do as much work to actually process them. A shame that the flavour doesn't get improved all that much.

Also, there's berry juices running down his fingers.

He's just licked at them.

He probably wouldn't have done that if anyone was with him, but as far as he knows, he's constantly being watched by Charlie, and that specific Charlie has seen him in a tank top and boxers before.

Otherwise, though, he's pretty much alone. He daren't make a base near to a rabbit village or near enough to where the rock lobsters nest.

Maybe he ought to get on that, just in case the depths worms attack. Which they will, he knows they will, and he has no way whatsoever of dealing with them other than to try and lug a suit of armor on, dodge as much as he can, and make sure they're killed quickly.

...He probably should make some sort of armor, just in case they start coming over while he's on his own. He's not too sure about taking on one depths worm usually, there's no possible way he could handle four at once.

Oh, right, his backpack is still near the icebox.

He stands up, quickly skitters to retrieve his backpack and then walks back to the log to sit down again, dropping the backpack next to his feet and getting out the materials he needs.

Plenty of wood, grass and twigs, if need be, so he should easily be able to create a few suits of log armor, and he's done it enough times that he can do it without any splinters.

He gets to work on weaving the rope required, as well as setting aside enough logs to last for firewood for the entire season.

Looking up from his weaving, he freezes for a moment, seeing white eyes watching him from the shadows, and he watches them intently, unsure if it's someone else or a shadow creature hellbent on attacking him.

Eventually, the eyes close, and he's left wondering if he should have gotten up and brandished his spear or his sword.

The sword is down to its last legs and starting to fall apart, and the most he can do with a spear is jab it at the thing that he'd somehow registered as a threat.

Still, it doesn't really bode well for the time being, and there's a deeply unsettled feeling in his chest.

Cival shifts, blinking a little, and trying to dismiss the way his hands are shaking in order to continue weaving rope for grass- no, log armor. It was definitely log armor. Grass armor doesn't protect as much and requires more grass than log armor.

There's probably some mushrooms in the fridge, but he doesn't want to end up taking too many for his own good.

The tent is still usable, and there's plenty of spiders and grass around. They can easily make another one. He looks around again. It's to make sure there's nobody else around and no shadow monsters trying to come after him, he tells himself.

He shifts again, quietly leaving the half-finished rope with his backpack, and heading towards the tent, before turning back and taking the backpack and the incomplete rope. He can finish it if he can't sleep, maybe.

Fine with this reasoning, he heads towards the tent again, this time with the intent to hole up in there until the scary things go away. Which hasn't really worked out in the past without outside intervention. Also his legs hurt and it's getting fairly late anyways, isn't it?

He stares up at the deep, dark cave ceiling and thinks for a moment, before heading into the tent anyways.

It's dark in here but he has the company of a lantern with fairly fresh bulbs. And the light that it brings.

Oh, he forgot to put a few bulbs in the fridge.

...He really shouldn't leave it for tomorrow. On account of his awful memory, no thanks to the glorified chair that the current Queen now holds.

Cival quietly whines to himself, before dragging himself out of the tent and shambling towards the icebox, opening the door and shoving the lightbulbs in.

Good enough.

He silently buggers off back into the tent, mostly to use the tent for its intended purpose. Which is sleeping. Totally not just staying awake and having twenty different existential crisises going on at the same time because he rarely finds himself with just one crisis. It's either all the crisises or none of them.

Even he doesn't know why his mind is like that. He'd very much like to know why, the most he can say is that it isn't normal and he's very painfully aware of that! Joy.

And he's just realized that he's currently alone, which makes everything ten times worse. Which includes the paranoia.

Yay.

The scientist drags himself out of the tent again, mostly to check on the fire and to see if anyone is coming. The others better not have forgotten him, he thinks, the silence (barring the ringing, tones and static, that's always been there) is oppressive.

Chucking another log on the fire, he's not entirely sure whether he hates overheating to death or the caves more.


End file.
